Page 91 of Cursed Dreams
“I’m not in the mood, Vaelith,” she muttered, moving to pass him.
He stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“I was waiting.”
She stilled. “Why?”
“Something shifted tonight.” He looked her over slowly, was that concern in his expression?
“Something powerful. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” she tried to wipe all emotion from her face.
“What did you do Thalia?”
His words brought back the memory of the ground trembling, the crack of lightning.
“I felt it,” he continued, voice low but deadly. “Like the air itself stilled. The world shook and you were at the centre of it.”
She looked away. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” His voice hardened. “What’s happening to you?”
She clenched her fists. “Why do you care?”
“We have been through this ” he snapped, and for the first time, something raw slipped through the cracks. “I care because -” “I just do!”
She turned her back to him, taking a step away, trying to breathe, to quickly get her racing mind in order, he closed the distance again.
“You’re hiding something,” “Whatever it is, it’s written all over you. And your power—”
“Stop.” She faced him, chest rising and falling. “You don’t get to do this . You don’t get to demand pieces of me like you’re owed them.”
His eyes narrowed, she caught the flicker. The shift in colour. Silver gone, turning liquid gold, he was struggling, with anger, with control?
The burning in her chest intensified, something deep within her stirred witnessing his distress, she wanted to calm him, to rile him all at once. To tell him everything and nothing What was wrong with her? It was as though he was a both a lifeline and a curse .
“Vaelith…” she whispered.
He looked away first.
“I shouldn’t have waited here,” he said. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Then why did you?”
Silence leached the air between them.
His jaw tightened. “Because you never leave my mind.”
“Every time I think I’ve buried it, that I am content to leave you alone, You invade my thoughts and it all comes back. Your voice. Your smile. Your light.” His voice dropped, hoarse now. “Even when you don’t speak to me, I feel you.”
Her heart thundered in her chest; she needed to get away from him.
“I didn’t ask for any of that,”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Neither did I.”
They stared at each other. In that moment, Thalia felt the ache of breaking in two. One half of her longed for the male fading in a dreamless prison, bound to her by destiny. The other for the male broken and burning right in front of her. She couldn’t deny the pull to Vaelith, despite the feeling of betrayal to Caelum.
